


Only You (Can't Be the One)

by kafeiro



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Guilt, Ianto Jones is my angst muse, Infidelity, Insomnia, Jack is pretty bloody good for that too, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 05:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17197778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kafeiro/pseuds/kafeiro
Summary: He wound up in bed with him again, only to count down the hours in the dark, wracked with guilt.This had to be the last time.How many times had he said that before? Lying to Jack, to himself, to Lisa...





	Only You (Can't Be the One)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm clearing out my various harddrives of all my one-shots, musings and WIPs in the hopes of sparking something again.
> 
> This is from early 2010 and when I read over it to pop it up here I got Infidelity by Skunk Anansie stuck in my head, hence the title. If you've not heard it, give it a listen. Give Skunk Anansie a listen. Their music has prompted a great number of drabbles, RPs and lengthy writing projects for me.

2:16am.  
It seemed, at first, as though silence penetrated the room. The overwhelming darkness and the sudden feeling of being wholly alone hit as hard as the events that had preceded it only hours before. No sound or colour or shape defined this moment, and Ianto strangely relished the blankness of it all.  
He sat still; back against the cold, stone wall alongside with the bed was pushed, knees pulled up his chest underneath the thin cotton sheets. He wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes. 

2:26am, and he still could not move for thought. He had betrayed her: the woman he loved above all others, the woman he kept secret, the woman he could surely save if only the right kind of doctors could treat her. He had betrayed her, and the proof was beside him, all around him, and inside him. He looked over at the comatose form beside him, bare chest gently rising and falling with breath, and up past the ceiling to the floor above. Jack’s eyes fluttered in REM sleep, likely dreaming of things Ianto could not even begin to imagine, nor would want to. Ianto returned his gaze to him, feeling both contempt and desire for the man. He loved Lisa deeply, with all the devotion he had up until this point in his life. He loved her, even as she was at present, and he could never be unfaithful to her. Yet here he was, in the bed of his boss, laying in sullied sheets with sullied thoughts of him, and contemplating his own sullied body.  
He should feel wholly ashamed. He should feel the pang of regret and be rid of any lust or desire for the man beside him. But he wasn’t. Even as he sat feeling unclean and immoral, he knew he would return to this bed, allow himself to fall prey beneath this man, and collapse in this ecstasy all over again when next he could. 

2:43am found Ianto simply staring at Jack’s face feeling wretched and confused, lonely in his silence, and guilty at his own position. Mere moments away from the room lay Ianto’s secret lover, strapped down and sleeping. He couldn’t help but wonder if she somehow knew what he had done, could hear his ardent cries and moans , see his contorted face as he came as if for the very first time, smell the heady scent of sex and Jack’s pheromones in the air...  
He knew it was impossible, even with her upgrades and enhancements, but the guilt eroded his rationale and withered his composure, and sense entwined with the flow of paranoia, winding and melding incomprehensibly.  
Jack really was like a drug.

2:57am, 2:58, 2:59... The minutes passed like seconds. Ianto resolved to slide back down fully under the sheets, laying flat and stiff on the mattress, eyes half closed. A soft sigh broke the silence, a sigh Ianto hadn’t even realized had escaped his lips. He turned to his side, gently and carefully so as not to wake Jack. He stared solemnly, committing his whole form as it was to memory, all the while pleading with himself to make this the final time he saw it as such, naked and vulnerable, and ridiculously tempting. This would be goodbye. He was a good and faithful man, and infidelity was not something he could allow himself. Still, his hand reached out to the other man, lightly stroking his hair. Jack’s eyes opened slowly but fluidly, and his gaze turned straight to Ianto. The two remained silently staring for a while, silent save for the sound of their breaths. Jack studied Ianto’s face, saw the sadness and longing in his eyes, the circles beneath them, and the creases left upon his brow.

“We’ve all been broken before,” he said simply, barely above a whisper. He closed his eyes briefly and sighed gently as Ianto did, looking once again into his eyes, searching, connecting. 

“We just have to pick up the pieces and build a new purpose for ourselves, find the meaning of it all.” His hand rose to cup Ianto’s face, brush the corner of his lips.

“I can give you meaning, Ianto...”   
There was a beat, a pause in which there was silence, and feeling, and an understanding that needed no other explanation. Softly, they edged closer to each other, breath tickling moist lips in a pensive pause, until their lips connected. The kiss was gentle at first, tentatively touching and parting until the flicker of passion sparked all the lust and longing, hope and intense desire for absolution, for intimacy and an end to the loneliness, and for the escape from reality he so desperately needed and realized he at last wanted. Jack’s tongue ran across his lips, and his thoughts subsided as his lips parted and his own tongue tasted Jack’s. Hands wound through hair and caressed skin, and everything was suddenly lost in a blur of aching, and longing, and completion.

And he was back at the beginning again, full circle, sinking into beautiful sin so easily, and forgetting about the prone form of his lover and the truth of his betrayal. 

5:15am...


End file.
